Today, individuals are able to use their computers to download and play various media content. For example, many companies offer so-called media players that reside on a computer and allow a user to download and experience a variety of media content. For example, users can download media files associated with music and listen to the music via their media player. Users can also download video data and animation data and view these using their media players.
One problem associated with prior art media players is they all tend to display different types of media in different ways. For example, some media players are configured to provide a “visualization” when they play audio files. A visualization is typically a piece of software that “reacts” to the audio that is being played by providing a generally changing, often artistic visual display for the user to enjoy. Visualizations are often presented, by the prior art media players, in a window that is different from the media player window or on a different portion of the user's display. This causes the user to shift their focus away from the media player and to the newly displayed window. In a similar manner, video data or video streams are often provided within yet another different window which is either an entirely new display window to which the user is “flipped”, or is a window located on a different portion of the user's display. Accordingly, these different windows in different portions of the user's display all combine for a fairly disparate and unorganized user experience. It is always desirable to improve the user's experience.
In addition, there are problems associated with prior art visualizations. As an example, consider the following. One of the things that makes visualizations enjoyable and interesting for users is the extent to which they “mirror” or follow the audio being played on the media player. Past visualization technology has led to visualizations that do not mirror or follow the audio as closely as one would like. This leads to things such as a lag in what the user sees after they have heard a particular piece of audio. It would be desirable to improve upon this media player feature.
Accordingly, this invention arose out of concerns associated with providing improved media players and user experiences regarding the same.